Aftermath
by Rosethorn
Summary: Aftermath of a soulgaze. His, hers, theirs. HarryMurphy.
1. Regard

She doesn't look at him much anymore.

He knew she wouldn't; that's why he fought the inevitable for so long. That's why he dropped his eyes when she looked at him, or looked away, drew her attention to something else. He knew what she would see when she finally _saw_ him. He knew what she would do, and he knew nothing would ever be the same.

He misses her eyes on him. Skeptical, affectionate, reassuring, furious, he misses them all. He misses the way she used to arch her eyebrow at him, the way she used to try to catch his eyes, to tell if he was lying to her. Not that he has, since his promise. Not directly, anyway. Not that she'd ever believe that.

She knows now, and she doesn't look at him.

He wonders sometimes if she saw how much he loves her, what he'd do for her. Maybe that's what frightened her away, more than the knowledge of who he is. She already knew that, after all. She knew who he was, and perhaps more importantly, she knew _what_ he was.

He shakes his head, knows himself to be a fool. She's not _gone_, after all. She's still there. They still talk, still work together as well as they did before. She just doesn't look at him much.

He's been more of a fool than he thought.

Sometimes he will feel her eyes on him, a phantom caress, and turn and she was looking in an entirely different direction, or more often she isn't there at all and he is imagining things. He's good at imagining things.

Maybe she saw the dreams, the way he used to wish for a way to be with her. He doesn't wish for that anymore—he just wants his best friend back. And he knows she isn't coming back.

It's been three weeks, but he can remember the feeling of her as perfectly as if it had been three seconds, and he will remember it perfectly for the rest of his life; that's the nature of the Sight, after all. He can remember her faith, sullied and broken and knitted up again, and her focus, still whole and concentrated. He can remember her virtue, the virtue she doesn't really believe she has anymore, and her strength, and buried somewhere beneath all the slime and muck he's dragged her through all those years, he can remember the idealism she still somehow carries within her.

He saw her in her eyes, waist-deep in muck with a sword dulled by time, still fighting, still struggling. He wanted to reach for her and pull her out of the muck, wanted to take her place there. It's his fault, after all, all his fault that she's been so hurt, so broken by what she's seen. If he could take it all back, take all the pain and suffering and lost faith on his own soul, he'd do it in a heartbeat. He'd take all the world's suffering if he could; what else does he deserve, after what he's done?

He knows she saw that.

Maybe that's why she won't look at him anymore.


	2. Distance

At first, she was so angry with him she could hardly see. Which was unfair, because this entire situation is at least half her fault, but she can't help what she feels. He promised, anyway, he promised her no more secrets and no more lies.

And if the only reason he kept secrets from her in the first place was because she _told_ him to, she still feels entitled to a little irrational anger.

Anger's better than depression, no matter which way you slice it. Particularly this kind, the kind that clouds her throat and chokes off her breath, the kind that makes her weep silently in the middle of the night until she wakes up with her head aching, feeling exactly the same as she did when she went to bed.

He watches her all the time now, and she can't help but wonder if he's looking for cracks. There's a certain wary quality to his eyes, a certain readiness to flee in his stance that makes her somehow positive he's seen something to fear in her. That he saw something in her soul to frighten him away from her forever.

She's mortally afraid that if he goes, that's it, that's the end.

In the next moment she's chastising herself for being dramatic. He's not going anywhere. Even if he did fear her his own innate sense of chivalry will keep him stubbornly there, firmly by her side against the impossible things they come up against daily.

And that's not at all what she wants. Him staying by her because he feels like he has to...something in her revolts at the idea. Somewhere in those dark nights, vacillating between blinding rage and heartrending despair, she realized that she'd lied to him when she told him it couldn't happen.

Well, she hadn't _lied_, not really, because what she'd meant was it couldn't happen _then._ And it couldn't have, not then, because if it had happened she would have screwed it all up and he really would have left, just like every other man she'd ever let herself love. She still would screw it up, she thinks morosely, which is why it probably can't happen ever, because she can't lose this. She can't lose him.

She's terrified that she's lost him anyway.

At least she has that one thin protection; she's never admitted that she might love him, not even in the privacy of her own head. Maybe if she holds away from that, he'll stay. She can survive without sex, after all. She won't be _happy_ about it, but she can survive without it. And she can't without him—well, no, that's not quite right. It isn't that she can't survive without him, exactly. It's more that she doesn't even want to think about living without him _there_.

He's her best friend. Lately it seems like he's her only friend. He knows that; she saw it in him, in amid the darkness and the anger and the ever-present fear that he'll fall, that he'll become everything they've fought against. He knows on some level that he's all she's got. And that deep, unspoken love she saw in there...

She's afraid. She's afraid that what he saw in her has killed that love. She's afraid he saw what she's become, a sullied, broken thing with no more faith, no more strength left in her, and he's lost that love. She's afraid he only watches her now because he's waiting for the right moment to go. And if she tells him she loves him, he'll only go faster.

She cannot lose him; but something inside her knows she already has.


	3. Connection

Title: Connection

Author: TigerKat24

Rating: PG-13 for ahem implications.

Spoilers: None.

Summary: Aftermath of a soulgaze, part 3.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mr. Butcher.

Author's Note: Who loves ya, baby? Our Heroes finally talk, and angst and fluff ensue. I feel like I've been wrestling bears. Anyway, 10 100-word drabbles and one ten-word wrapup. Intended as bookverse, but could be either. Still terioncalling's fault.

Wizard!angst (aka, part 1) here.

Cop!angst (aka, part 2) here.

Crossposted to my journal.

"Harry?" she asks, in a small voice.

He flinches. He can't help himself. "Yeah?"

"You've been thinking about it." It's a statement, not a question. He doesn't need to ask what she means by 'it,' either.

"Yeah." He can't look her in the eye now. He knows what's coming. "Yeah, I have."

She swallows; he watches the skin of her throat move as if hypnotized. He tries to memorize it, to memorize her, the way he's been doing these last few weeks to stave off the sneaking feeling that every look is the last.

"Me too," she says, at last.

He's watching her again, that wary look back and stronger than ever, except he isn't watching her face. His eyes are directed somewhere lower, and not even lower as in kiss-your-teeth-goodbye-lower, but lower like he's avoiding her eyes. The way he used to do when he lied to her.

She can't say this. She'd intended to ask him what he'd been thinking, and now she just can't. For the first time she can't finish what she started.

"Murph?" he asks, cautiously. "What about it?"

Oh, God, she can't.

"Nothing. Never mind." She turns away from him.

She's leaving, and he knows this is the end. There's such finality in her movements, that he can't help but scramble after her.

"No, wait!"  
He's spoken before he's even thought about what he's going to do. Beg, maybe? Fall to his knees and plead with her? He wouldn't want her to stay if that was the only reason she did. But she's turning, and for an instant there's a look on her face...

It's gone before he can place it, and her eyes are shuttered again. "What is it?"

Just that. Flat and empty. His heart breaks again.

"I..."

This is it. This is when he tells her he's leaving. She closes her eyes.

_No matter what,_ she instructs herself, _don't cry. You can do anything else, so long as you don't cry..._

"I'll have the department mail you your paycheck," she tells him, finally. "They know where you live."

He nods, mutely. She waits.

_Just say it, damn you..._

She can't take it anymore. "Harry," she begins.

He looks up suddenly and holds her eyes, for the second time ever. "Screw the damn paycheck," he says, abruptly. "Murph, I have to ask. Do you want me to go?"

It's almost funny, the way she looks at him, like he's just spoken in tongues. She'd kill him if he laughed. He might kill himself.

"Do I want you to go?" she says, slowly, as if she's trying to understand his words

He shrugs. "For good, I mean," he says, and can't believe that the words don't tear his throat. "I will if you want me to."

_Because I can't take this,_ he wants to say. _I can't take standing here, watching you, waiting for the end, so I'll end it myself. Maybe it'll be clean._

Maybe pigs would fly.

Is he serious? He can't be serious. She spears him with what she hopes is an incredulous look (but what's probably more painful vulnerability) and asks, "Where the hell did you get that idea?"  
He blinks. "Uh."

It's far too late for him to interrupt. She's gotten started, and now she can't stop.

"I've spent the last three weeks wondering why the hell you keep looking at me like you're waiting for me to explode, wondering when you're going to go away like all the rest," her voice rises, embarrassingly shrill, "and you ask if I _want_ you to go?"

It's official— he'll _never_ understand women.

"Murphy..."  
"How dare you?" she yells, her eyes starting to glisten. "You bastard, how _dare_ you?"

"You wouldn't look at me!" he shouts, grabbing her shoulders. "What was I supposed to think? I thought you..."  
She interrupts him, her voice suddenly deadly soft. "So this is all _my_ fault."  
Wait... what? How did they get here? He inhales through his nose and tries to keep calm. "That isn't what I meant."

"Then what _did_ you mean?" She folds her arms, ignores his hands still on her shoulders, and glares.

He looks at her, helplessly, and can't speak.

Shit, _shit_, she's going to cry.

"What _did_ you mean?" she asks again, hearing her own voice choke with tears. "Dammit, Harry, if you're going to go, just _go._ I don't... I can't..."

His grip on her shoulders shifts, the only warning she has before he pulls her into his arms and kisses her as if he's drowning. She has about a heartbeat of rational thought left, and she thanks God that this blew up after a case, back at his office. If this had happened in public...

...but he's kissing her, and all she can do is hold on.

She melts in his arms, soft and pliant, and if he was a less principled man he'd have her then and there. But he's not, so he pulls away, though it physically hurts, and steadies her when she half-falls against him.

"I can't go," he tells her. She looks a little dazed, so he repeats himself. "I _can't_ go. Not unless you make me. I..." His voice fails for the third time, and he shakes his head.

"I thought you didn't want me," she volunteers, her voice less steady than before. "Because of what you saw."

He chokes on air.

He stares at her, his face flatly incredulous, and a small bubble of hope warms her chest. "You thought— hell, Murph. I want you _more._" He pauses, then adds, "I thought you didn't want _me_ around anymore. I know I'm not the best of people..."

Whatever he reads in her face shuts him up.

"I knew you," she says, softly, and touches his cheek. "You forgot that. I didn't see anything I didn't already know about you." She hesitates, and finally adds, "I didn't see anything I didn't already love."  
There's a moment of stunned silence. Then she kisses him.

Nothing was ever the same. It didn't need to be.


End file.
